The death of a bill in Congress this week that would have bolstered election security systems puts more pressure on states to prevent cyberattacks from Russia that former special counsel Robert Mueller warned against this week. But many states are paralyzed by their own inaction.
State and local election officials want to replace aging or outdated equipment before the 2020 election, but many have said they lack the money to do so. In some states, recent legislative sessions produced little progress.
The issue took on greater urgency this week in Washington as Mueller bluntly told lawmakers about Russian meddling in American elections: “They’re doing it as we sit here.” Democrats passed a $775 million spending measure to funnel more money to states for election security, but Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the bill. The Kentucky senator said the federal government is already doing enough to shore up voting systems and there’s no need to spend an additional sum of money that size.
Texas is one state that illustrates the challenges in enacting significant election security.
A Texas bill this year would have required all voting machines to have paper trails by 2024, but those changes were included in a broader Republican package to crack down on ballot-box crime, such as making it a felony to put false information on a voter registration form.